It’s funny though because after reading your message, particularly the part below, I can only nod my head in agreement!

“their reaction to modernity takes the path of least resistance, which has already been laid down for them by the demons of the Liberal Anglo-American machine — Reactionary Nationalism and Reactionary Religiosity.” [my message]

I can’t recall if you’ve read anything by Oswald Spengler, but your own conclusions on modernity, history & philosophy are reminiscent of his discoveries- in other words quite simply sensible & well-rounded!

On Nietzsche, I’m no zealot myself but even when I disagree with some of his topics, his style of writing is really appealing 😛 Aside from that, despite his sort of life-affirming assertions, there is a streak of cynicism, pessimism, and moral righteousness in his ideas that make their way in via his personality (shaped, understandably, by bad life experiences). I can’t help but notice it.

Maybe you have a different take on this that I’d like to learn of but I can’t really grasp what he expects of the ubermensch, and why this type of man hasn’t already existed- in the Western world at least. If he means that the higher type is a creator of values, then I don’t see why power-grabbers who set their own standards (in political, economic, intellectual realms), possibly Machiavellian types?, aren’t a sort of ubermensch in their own right, those who don’t give in to the norms or take advantage of them to get what they want- out of conscious doing or not[…]

To be honest, I’ve only read only read a bit of Spengler’s Decline of the West(the first two chapters of the first volume). I love him. But. My views on history and everything is the result of my own readings — that said, I’m sure I probably have Spengler’s and Hegel’s influence indirectly through my reading of other historians, or something. I entirely agree with Spengler’s organic approach to history, wherein human societies and civilization has its own emergentqualities and consequences that go far beyond human volition, deliberation, even our comprehension — perhaps even to the point that human civilization is its own neural network of some greater emergent organism. This theory of mine admittedly needs heavy refining and intense research before I go flashing it around, though. 🙂

That said, I’m quite (self-)schooled in the German intellectual tradition, so any of my Spengler-esque flashes of insights may just be a convergent coincidencefrom being schooled in the same intellectual fathers! 😉

Nietzsche is awesome — aesthetically, philosophically, everything, even if you don’t agree with him. But, he is a complicated read, seeming to contradict himself (but I think he’s just writing from different angles — and being humorous/sarcastic/playful more than half of the time. I do that a lot myself, so I can understand where he’s coming from {phenomenologically, at least}.) Reading him in translation, and reading him outside of mid-late 19th century European context, are also two very key barriers to understanding Nietzsche.

Regarding Nietzsche’s cynicism and pessimism, much of these passages are actually instances of morbid humor (black humor, really), absurdity, and, well, deliberately trolling his audience. Take his views on the Jews for instance — I remember a quote from memory where he starts a paragraph, “And Jesus said to his Jews…” — that shit is a straight-up trolling of German anti-Semitic ‘purists’. Nietzsche was a troll of the 19th century industrial printing-press era.

The Übermensch is sort of an ideal, yes, but it has existed historically and still does. But, I agree with you that if the Übermensch hasn’t already existed, there’s no reason why it should suddenly pop into existence. (Especially given Nietzsche’s views on Eternal Reoccurance — why were there no Übermenschen before Nietzsche?) Nietzsche has argued in Geneology of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, and many other works, that such Übermensch-like individuals have existed in remote antiquity, and right up to his contemporary era (Goethe, Napoleon, and Cesare Borgia to name a few.)

The thing about the Übermensch is that, the Übermenschnota set of beliefs. The Übermensch is notan orthodoxy or orthopraxy. The Übermensch is nota dogmatic position. And the Übermensch is nota philosophical or political partisan position.

I understand that Nietzsche’s Ubermensch is surrounded in myth and strange interpretations of the Ubermensch as some kind of self-entitled, greedy, short-sighted, stuck-up, cut-throat asshole like the kind of douchebag you might encounter at an Objectivist meeting — but that’s not what Nietzsche is saying the Ubermensch is.

What the Übermensch is, is a complex of dispositions,instincts, temperament, inclinations, a focus of energies, and a general attitude. The focus of the Ubermensch’s is on personal,individual liberation, on carpe diem, on (relative) self-sufficiently, and on self-empowerment. The Ubermensch is not a political view, nor is the Ubermensch expected to hold particular political views — the Ubermensch is not necessarily a “Libertarian” or a “Communist” or a “Centrist” or a “Socialist” — it’s more in the way the Ubermensch carries out life on a personal level. The Ubermensch concernspersonal attitudes — not political or philosophical positions.

I’m rephrasing here, but: Nietzsche has said many times that consciously formed political and philosophical positions are symptoms of our spontaneous subconsciousness and pre-intellectualizing selves that we might be aware of but will not admit. He also says that these consciously formed positions are determined by the context in which they originate.

Eg., taking a position in the academia or in the public forum is very different than, say, in recruiting for a revolution or getting support for political office —as Mitt Romney has demonstrated with his constant flip-flopping on issues, or Obama’s promise of CHANGE. I’m not suggesting that either of these men are Ubermensch, but I’m (and Nietzsche) saying that the conscious mind and what individuals say about themselves is a tiny fraction of their overall package. Such political/philosophical/religious positions are part-in-parcel to the Will to Power, which is actually this spontaneous subconscious and pre-intellectualizing process that can throw itself into the realm of intellectuality.

Basically, ^ is a lengthy way of saying, survival>all.

The Ubermensch is a strange concept to fathom strictly from the standpoint ofphilosophicalargumentation alone — Nietzsche provides no argument. It’s a general framework for self-improvement, maybe even emulation? Maybe it’s better read as a kind of self-help book with philosophical overtones.

Just as an aside, the Ubermensch is actually comparable to Aristotle’s Magninmous Man of the Nichomachian Ethics, and from many tropes from ancient Greek mythoi (the so-called “Dionysian man” of Birth of Tragedy — although there are a plethora of Übermensch-like individuals and tropes from other cultures, as mentioned in Genealogy and even the Antichrist)